Another first day, in another first week, in another first year

The first week of school was mainly planning, with only one 5th grade class to teach. The second week started after Labor Day, then another first fifth grade class, my first all day of high school Wednesday, with three different classes without a break, one being my first year ever teaching chemistry and the other two having new curricula. Then came a different 5th grade class Thursday. This week, my third week, was the first full week, including the start of math tutoring all day Tuesday and Thursday, and the first Friday classes.

Mondays and Wednesdays are just as packed and challenging as ever, with this year featuring an extra large Algebra 1 class that has to meet in the dim, chilly foyer. So I have to get the tables and chairs set up beforehand, tote all my stuff down and then upstairs after, including laptop, cords, handouts, books and projector cart. I did get a helper in the form of the Social Studies teacher, with whom I’ve become good friends but have yet to figure out how we’ll work out our team teaching. He doesn’t really know the math, he says, but we’ll figure something out. The challenge is that all but a handful of students don’t remember much of their pre-algebra skills, so we have to do a few weeks of review, all with custom photocopied material because we can’t order the texts yet.

We are also short a full class set of Chemistry texts, so I have to decide which alternative I’ll base the course on–an open source text, my own hodgepodge, or something I can scan for those who opt for online text access. Apparently the approval process for the real online text is too expensive and costly. I do like a challenge, but I can’t seem to find the time to nail down a better plan now that things are in full swing, unless I put in extra days on the weekend. Which I’m sure I’ll do this weekend, as last.

But Fridays this year are easier to manage, less stressful and with more margin, thanks to the new principal with a new plan. She’s all about trusting us, being flexible and creative, and making things less stressful. So she changed four preps to two (one repeated class), plus a supporting/tutoring role for me in an Algebra 2 hour I don’t have to plan (much). Most classes are smaller than last year, and we are not obliged to put up with shenanigans from certain rascals only there because their parents wanted a break and they want drama.

I’m using a well-designed boxed curriculum for the two middle school classes, at the urging of my principal, to further simplify my life as I adjust and support my family after the death of my spouse. It teaches the basics of physics, the history of scientific discovery, and the scientific method.

But I couldn’t resist custom designing a fresh course. Environmental Leadership is a high school elective, and as I made the proposal for it, I found that I’ve become much more practical and efficient at laying out a year plan and blocking out the elements. It should, if things go well, culminate in a final public event where the students show their stuff and change the world a little for the better. Some of the rascals from last year have become freshman, though, and for some reason, they still like my classes.

So I’m back to full time. I had planned to take Fridays off for the first semester, but now I’m down to maybe trying to take more sick days so I have margin. Getting a sub is more work than teaching, so unless I have a good video…okay, so I get it now, with the videos for the subs. I used to complain as a sub that all I got to do was show videos. I’ll try to find the time to plan some easy days so I can vacate a little, with advance notice, because subs, let alone good subs, are almost impossible to find in our district without advance notice.

 

The man inside the boy

I don’t know what happened with my youngest son, but it’s good. I have been urging, reminding, cajoling, conniving, and ganging up on his to either do more physical activity of the ordinary kind such as biking to school, running, or swimming at the local pool, or join a school or club sport or team, to please, please choose something, and I’d support him. But he only dabbled, while his newly developed height with doubled number of muscle cells puddled in a chair as he played computer games for hours a day. I got into it with him the other day–he could see from my intensity how heartfelt my concern was, how serious a thing I felt it was to neglect one’s health that way, how he would be giving up the good feeling of strength, balance, and sense of accomplishment, even while his brain was tricked into thinking that the levels or perks of his gaming were some kind of real achievement. It was a hijack of his innate evolved dopamine reaction that didn’t pay the same dividend as REAL challenges, REAL risk, REAL conflict, trouble, and overcoming, I said. And no, I said, when he told me he needed me to “make him” exercise, I just couldn’t, with a full work schedule and disciplines of my own to fit in. I said he had to make himself, or sign up for something where he would be made to do the work. I acknowledged the reality of the temptation to yield one’s time and attention to those clamoring for it–the games, or movies, or social media for some. I told him it was too much–I had been willing to make athletics mandatory, but there was supposed to be an eventual owning of it, and it was past time.

He wasn’t planning to swim again this year–said he’d had too many ear infections. Last year, with lots of encouragement from his parents and his siblings, he chose to swim on the high school team, after years of unenthusiastically participating in summer league and improving each year, though never enough in his own mind to pay more than grudging acknowledgment to his gradual drop in race times. He felt nowhere near as good a swimmer as his brother and sister before him, though she assured him that his times were about the same as hers when she started. His brother had started much younger and so had immediately made varsity in his freshman year, going on to be count Swimmer of the Year and then almost make college nationals (in Canada). We assured him it didn’t matter, that it was about fitness and fellowship, and that we loved watching him swim, along with his grandparents. Also, he was becoming a bit of a specialist in backstroke, unlike his Freestyle/Fly siblings. So much for an easy choice –excellent coach, good group of boys, great fitness, and fun to watch for us. But it seemed to be over. His sisters had invited him to go for climbing and to the gym, but nothing was happening.

Then today, he burst out of his garage bedroom and said, one, that he was really glad his drum teacher had got him listening to jazz it was so amazing (he never listened to music before this, despite several years of piano lessons and now a few months of drumming), and two, that he wanted me to sign him up for swimming.

So I guess the exhortation with tears got to him where the gentle reminders and reasoning didn’t. He’s a heart guy, like his dad. He’s owning it, too–he doesn’t do things just to be compliant, but he does have a desire to do what’s right. He’s manning up, I think. I’m so proud of him Dare I hope that he’ll also heed my pleas to say no to first person shooter games, to protect his imagination, or to do real live work with his hands, like helping me build a new compost bin, or splitting some firewood, instead of virtual digital building and tearing down?

 

Labor that may or may not deliver

Meanwhile in attempts to lift poor children from having little or no opportunity to go to that kind of place, or any college, to grow up educated and provide a decent living for their families, Bill Gates and other business entrepreneurs (a.k.a. social entrepreneurs), in partnership with the federal government, have launched their attempt to education everyone with “twentieth century skills,” ready for the work force.

Good, but why does that have to mean, among other things, less reading of fiction in favor of more extraction of meaning from informational text? Why limit the finer opportunities still available to those whose brain functions have not been culled by stress and poverty, who possess the desire and ability to long for deeper connection, more  far-reaching vision, a deeper understanding and expression through the arts and literature. Let’s not dumb down the culture in making it a more egalitarian one, elevate jobs and “productivity” over education in the best sense of the word.

And what about the obvious conflict of interest in having the owners of the tech corporations provide the software and classroom supplies and pedagogical philosophy for these children’s education experiences? We need workers, they say—this is the twentieth century as we envisioned it, so let us help you fit into the future we are creating, and all of us will be better off. If something has to go, let it be anything that makes workers question how we already know we should be doing things. You know, growing the economy, competing with other market powers, preserving the American way of life. Which is democracy in the sense that those with the power to sway the majority (those with  twenty-first century skills–not cumulative up to the twenty-first, but the latest set and open to re-training) can do so efficiently by means of a database so comprehensive and powerful that it allows media and “educational” products to be created that cater to each and every individual learning style.  And the part of democracy that allows us all to choose from fifty kinds of breakfast cereal in the aisles of the local supermarket and either traditional or “Simply” ripple chips, all produced by a few central manufacturing facilities staffed by twenty-first century workers. We can help students learn so effectively the practical skills they need to be “productinve members of a global democratic society” that the neural pathways needed to understand 1984, Brave New World, the MaddAdam trilogy, Animal Farm, The Hunger Games, and That Hideous Strength will be unnecessary and therefore atrophy.

An apology for the convoluted nature of my sentences, and how they go on and on, and have too many clauses. I’ve been told the “Ten Ways You Can …”, say, “Fight the Machine” format is so much more effective, but I haven’t mastered that twenty-first century communication style yet.

This existence of seems so contrived—since when in these thousands of years does one wake and not have to go about making a living? Making in the sense of obtaining food, shelter, and cultural context and materials from teh ecosystem. All aI have to do is create—to write, sew, paint, create and maintain human bonds, and that mainly based on the compulsion of angst about this modern life: what is it? What does it mean? Why are things not fair and I have this free time while others are laboring to the point of exhaustion for bread for their children and something to hide from the drunken consort? Why is it considered more valuable to go into database architecture, or game design, which pay a lot of trade tokens, than being a parent, home maker, friend of neighbors in the community, or teacher? In the division of labor, some make money doing work that is of dubious historic or spiritual value, so that others can do the important, though unpaid, work.

 

A podcast Idea: Two old friends reunited

A few years ago I tried to look up an old college friend, AK, searched online and came upon her husband’s obituary. She lost him to cancer, she and their four children about the ages of our four. I had spoken to her only a few times and exchanged a few letters since their wedding a year after ours, and then, flash! So much living and then his death, and life still goes on. What must that be like, to lose one’s partner and have to raise children alone. Though she has a loving and large family around to lean on.

The obituary was posted as a closing piece on his blog. It was correct and appropriate, befitting his role as Anglican priest, but did not remind me of the young man I’d known. But who was he, really, and who am I to say the “real” JW was just that laughing, fun-loving curly-headed housemate that kept the heat too high in his basement bedroom and came up for food and laughter now and then. He was highly intelligent, Oxford classics scholar material for sure, but I was surprised when I heard he was going for the priesthood. The college we attended had full high Anglican chapel services several times a day, complete with fat priest who spoke with an imitation English accent while waving the incense thingamajig solemnly. JW had a beautiful, deep speaking and singing voice, though I know he would never use it to put on airs. Even when intoning on a serious subject, with us it always seemed to be a prelude to a crackup or digression into a Monty Python skit. He’d double up his spider-thin body and shake helplessly with laughter when we got going on this or that imitation or parody. Being goofy was such an important part of stress relief during exams and through that long, dark, slushy winter. For some reason we got into sound plays, which I’d record on cassette, complete with sound effects and voices. I found a recording which I plan to send to the family, featuring both JW and me doing a skit, and AK and me interviewing late night party lingerers about life, the universe, and not much of anything. We lit a fire in the fireplace of our gigantic Victorian living room, which had so little furniture, served peanuts in the shell, allowing the guests to throw the husks on the floor to add crunch to our movements.

AK, proper and devout, the oldest of five and by all accounts the responsible one, with a love of honest engagement, deep conversations, the occasional glass of wine, a commitment to seek God and follow Jesus, and a willingness to dance up a storm with me when the weekend came. She was ever kind and patient with me, accepting of my lack of orthodoxy, always finding something valuable in my attempts to articulate meaning, laughing at my jokes, praying for me a good deal more for me than she let on, I’m sure, as I stumbled through relationships and tried to stay on track with my studies and life. I strayed a lot, and she became a kind of shepherdess to me, by coming into my pastures instead of trying to hook me into hers. She was a true friend to me. We kept in touch after graduating, visited few times, and she was maid of honor at my wedding. I soon got the invitation to her wedding, and it’s a mark of my relational near sightedness that I hadn’t seen the match coming between her and JW, though I knew there was something there at times between them. I guess I didn’t listen very well, just wrote him off as the funnest kind of friend but not the marrying kind. Which worked out well for all of us anyway. JW and I made goofy tape recordings, he being the natural comic and I goading him on and doing sound effects, and during the other hours she and he were falling in love.

We drove over the mountains with our baby son to attend the wedding. I knew it would be a busy day, and I do hate to be in the way, so I didn’t get in touch with AK or her family. It was a lovely wedding–everyone was radiant and the flowers and homily and setting were superb, lots of guests from the upper echelon, her three lovely sisters as bridesmaids and brother ans groomsman, and was that the youngest sister with the buzz cut? Afterward we went the few blocks to the hall where the invitation-only reception was to take place–such an elegant room of well appointed tables, each with shining tableware and printed name cards. We went along the first edge reading these, and suddenly I was filled with self doubt and anticipated humiliation as I pictured not finding our names anywhere and having to slink away. Meanwhile was thinking I’m not dressed nice enough, and I don’t belong here, and I got a lump in my throat and dragged my husband out protesting and told him I didn’t think we were even invited–it was invitation only and I didn’t have one with me, and let’s get out of here, and let’s just go to the evening get together at the family’s house. None of his protests would budge me, nor his offer to go scouting for our names.

This is a hard memory for me, as is the memory of our conversation with AK that evening as she greeted us with tears of welcome, wondering where we had been. I explained my confusion, and saw that it upset her–she said how could I think we weren’t invited–I was one of her most honored guests. I was so embarrassed, and my husband was saying I told you so, and AK had been planning to say a few words about our friendship.

I don’t know why, but I get the wrong idea lots of times about my role in others’ lives, sometimes feeling so much an outsider, other times not noticing I am being welcomed in. So I err on the side of staying out of the way, assuming I’m not wanted or important, and would only be in the way. A holdover from really being in the way as a middle child, my mother always caring for younger ones and older ones doing their own things, my father being mobbed by everyone when he got home and just wanting to have a quite read or at least visit with one at a time.

In academics, topical discussions, or my profession, it’s different—I go boldly and feel confident, knowing my role and prerequisite skills, forgiving myself when I mess up, and feeling I have a reasonably balanced sense of ego. In friendships it’s different, and it takes me a long time to feel secure, and I find it difficult to do the work I need to do to maintain friendships from my end. So you see why all of my true friends have a lot of patience, and don’t assume that because I haven’t said anything to them in months that I do not value them. I really have to work on this fear of rejection or marginalization. Comes out most in informal group settings, when I really don’t know who I want to be in relation to, well, so many unique individuals, and why might what I’d say to one be appropriate for another? I’m not much good an breaking ice or small talk either, and tend to get impatient when no one broaches anything complex or debatable or asks sincere questions about things they’d like to learn. If most of my local family had any taste for alcohol and I enjoyed the occasional social drink, I suppose I’d still be using alcohol on occasion to help me with my social inhibitions, as I did in my first few years of college. Then I rededicated my life to God, and it became preferable to “get drunk on the Holy Spirit.” The Spirit may be empowering, but doesn’t make up for a lack of social graces.

I tried again to reach her this moth, after the death of my husband, and as I waited to see if she’d get the email I sent to what seemed to still be her place of work, I reflected on the similarity of our places in life–both of us teachers, both with fours children grown or almost grown, having lost husbands to cancer. My mind wandered into the prospect of going to visit her in Alberta next summer and taking a trip together, and making our conversations in to a podcast. Because along with the similar experiences, I was sure that there would be some very different points of view to discuss. I had given up efforts to be religious, while I was sure she had not. What would she think of that?

About a week later she replied, with comfort and sweetness, and a religious take on how I could best orient myself in the grieving process. I did not relate, though the words were very familiar. Jesus, well acquainted with grief. But his grief, I think wasn’t about loved ones dying to much as powerful people blocking others’ path to God. I guess we’d talk about that in the podcast.

But we’d start with our childhoods—a study in certain similarities and other contrast. Then college, same there. Then marrying and raising children, teaching, and having our husbands die. I think it could be an interesting show, and I might just propose it.

 

This week I said no a lot.

(Note: this is a post written four years ago that I forgot to publish – for those who know a bit about my family, so as not to be confused)

Heard on CBC’s “The Current” that Canadian parents spend an average of $480 to get stuff for their fifth graders to start school, and $970 for their twelfth graders. Big ticket items are fashion and tech. The advice was to cut back on the tech for elementary grades, since research has shown it takes away from the educational experience. Thank heaven for research. Also highlighted was that tendency for parents to imitate what they thought other parents were doing–to win social acceptance? a competitive edge for their kid? to assuage guilt? Looking at those shopping bags toted through the malls, feeling the panic to get the best selection, pick up the best deals.

Our school district made a smart move a few years ago, deciding not to require kids to buy school supplies, except an optional backpack or binder tote–all the basics would be provided–equality in pencils, notebooks, and planners for all, calculators only when necessary, a few items like organizers, poster board purchased by parents later. No more individualized school supply lists on racks in the big box stores, no more last minute shopping. There’s even a way for low income kids to get new school clothes at a special pickup day. And I know from experience, when you’re low income, you need all the help you can get.

So that one’s easier. I used to find myself arguing that the already sharpened pencils and only slightly used notebooks from last year were perfectly fine, that I had plenty of good colored pencils already with which to make sets, that we cold make really cool dividers out of cereal boxes. Even though I remember the pleasure of picking up new with my dad at the downtown office supply store, or even the dreaded mall. I loved printing my name on fresh, new notebooks, putting full length pencils, with erasers–O joy!, and pens into a new zipped case. Now the school hands over a starter kid the first day or even before. My high school kids also get slightly used leftover comp books and pens to round that out, and are content.

Food choices are another area where I’m putting my foot down, for both health and economy: The focus is on foods from the garden and simple healthy meals not based on too much white flour or expensive meats. I’ve been saying no to processed foods, GMO (which includes all non-organic corn, soy, canola, and beets), sugar drinks, store bought desserts. Not sure if I can make that stick, since my husband gets a little out of hand when he shops at Costco. Last time he came home with two kinds of ice cream treats, a huge rack of ribs, four large boxes of kid cereal, and two jars of Nutella. We’re dialoging about this, and he agrees with me in principle, but he just gets these Disney Dad moods. So I try to ration the special treats and mix in fruits, vegetables, cooked breakfasts, smoothies, and homemade granola and yogurt. Yes to local bagels, bread and bacon, homemade rhubarb cake and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, the occasional ice cream fruit shake. My son says I’m like the mom in the comic strip Foxtrot, if not quite so extreme. I do occasionally meet the kids halfway.

I’ve told the kids that if they’re desperate for treats, they have to make them in the kitchen, or pay out of pocket and pay mind to nutritional content. For example, my daughter learned yesterday (I asked at the window–she had a birthday gift card) that there are 42 grams sugar in a caramel Frappucino. That’s over 10 teaspoons of sugar in one drink. She’s putting it together. We discussed a phasing out plan, maybe having her go with a plain latte with one pump of caramel instead of four, for starters, and she was actually open to that. Also discussed types of lunches she’d like to have me make in the category of homemade/healthy/economical: clam chowder and minestrone being identified. I said no to individual cups of sweetened yogurt, and am pushing for her acceptance of my homemade kind with fruit jam. Have to pick the right moments to move the plan forward, and avoid a bossy or irritated manner.

My other daughter stated her resolve today, at the beginning of the high school swimming season, to eat healthier. Pleaded for more fresh fruit (besides the fresh and frozen berries we have on hand), and complained that there was nothing yummy in the fridge. I told her maybe not (though the fridge was full of food), but in combination it all could be made very yummy. So it’s time to teach her more recipes, besides potatoes fried with garlic and rosemary. Omelets with chard and cheese, baked potatoes with the works, salsa, tsiziki, potato salad. Food discontent is usually only a failure of imagination or experience, or plain laziness, and usually insufficient hunger. I also am helping her learn about seasonality–she was desperate for apples last month, but I explained I wasn’t buying apples that had either traveled around the globe or that had been in storage for a year; she’d have to wait until local fruit were in season. And no bananas except in special circumstances; no oranges until November. There were frozen berries in the freezer.

My youngest son loves treats and asks for ice cream pretty much every day if he knows it’s there, wants dessert after every meal, and I have to watch his portions of any sort of cereal or meat. But also loves to make and eat vegetable soup with lots of ginger. He’s shaping up to be my key cucumber consumer, loves green beans, and I hope to win him over to baked zucchini cheese melts.

Concerning clothing, which is a larger proportion of our budget that I’d like–most of the purchases being for my daughters, I try to conduct inventory of the girls’ clothes when they feel they need more, and we go to the second hand stores and look first. My daughters have finally accepted this, and are starting to enjoy the challenge. Now I’m encouraging them to buy a bit roomy so they won’t outgrow so soon, though that process is finally slowing down. My sons don’t care where we shop & let me pick out their stuff whenever possible (I enjoy picking out funky T-shirts, such as the one that reads “No Sense being a Pessimist–It’ll Never Work”). Not that they need much. They buy it loose, don’t care much about trendiness, and it lasts.

Driving was also a qualified no today. I took one daughter to the barn for chores–she earns a bit of money for her work, though I explained that I don’t want to spend $5 in gas and 45 minutes driving so she can earn $10. Once this commitment is done, she’ll only work when she’s there to ride also. Then the girls wanted to be driven to the lake for a swim. I said no–I had to finish job applications, and assigned the job to my oldest son, who baulked, until I reasoned with him and reminded him that his being able to use the little Honda was contingent on doing these errands. Then my friend and I both got out of driving our daughters to a sleepover across town and up a mountain, letting the host mom do the job. We’re not a big fan of sleepovers, since they leave the participants wasted the next day, and in my experience the bonding is not usually of a high quality type. I used to say no to them too.

 

Temptations, Resolutions

I shall address this to you, DD, because I need to feel I am writing to a woman friend this time, and you have proved to be someone who allows our friendship to survive, even thrive, on truth telling. Like when I told you that I am filled with frivolous, selfish desires after the death of my husband, rather than weighty, somber pearls of wisdom won through suffering. How although I had been growing through the demands of loving service, now, with the whole horizon there open before me, and no one of whom to ask leave, I feel giddy, and eager to plunge into any number of endeavors. Such as choosing my home decor, expanding the garden, traveling, organizing my business and publication ideas, and hosting bonfires with strung lights and guitar playing.

I told you I want to keep growing, not descend into a second adolescence. So help me God, I said, I might need to suffer more, because other than mourning my husband, whom I loved, and mourning for our children, who will no longer have a father, I have it easy. He provided well for us, I have a meaningful job that suits me, a nice little house, good friends, family, and interesting prospects. I have lots of time, relatively, to write, could join a book or writer’s group, could do my Master’s degree, could try that business dream.

You told me I could do no wrong, because I am the grieving widow. Though I appreciated the grace extended, I objected on the basis that one’s duty is always to consider others, even in difficult circumstances. No excuses. I made the same argument to a friend who told my husband to disregard others’ needs and focus on his own as a man with a terminal diagnosis. I told him he still had to be nice, at least in order get better care. People have to feel appreciated. He accepted that, as it fit into his life-long drive to grow and become more like Christ. He had visitor after visitor, and nurses and physicians assistants, go away feeling appreciated and encouraged. They told me so. It was a pleasure and an privilege to be his caregiver in the last months, he was so tender and kind.

I want to honor Mark’s memory, spend time properly aware of the loss of his life with us, and the hope that he is continuing some kind of even more meaningful existence in another dimension. I sense he has been lingering in some way with the family he loves, and even checking on us. In my case, through visitations from hummingbirds, and in dreams. My daughter also dreams in that way.

I have been warned that grief takes many forms and happens on different time tables, and the fact that I feel peace, calm, and even happiness, not despair, depression, anger, or a sense of loss and loneliness, does not mean something more intense won’t arise in my emotions and/or body. I want to stay in tune, and allow the process to unfold, as well as be a support to my kids as they walk this road.

So I will do my best to resist these worldly temptations. I asked my kids to keep an eye on me in case I move to make any big decisions this year, as some kind of distraction, release, or suppression of feelings. Though I release myself to be creative with my hands and words on a small scale, to stay physically fit, to build my relationships, to have fun with my kids and extended family.

Early on, I researched houses I could buy and fix up, ways I could add on to my house, and car sales (I would trade in two for one to consolidate–maybe a small truck or VW Westfalia for the trips I wanted to take?). I bought a few new clothes. I started having a nightcap some evenings. I watched two to three episodes of Grand Hotel a night in bed. And I looked up my first love on FaceBook. He’s still the same handsome, smiling guy I fell in love with my second year of college.

I was surprised at myself—usually, in my own estimation, a level headed person. It’s not that I have felt needy; it’s been a rich time of connection with friends, and with my husband, albeit in a new way. He and I related more as friends, without the pressure of other duties. And it was a relief, not a disappointment, to not be pursued sexually by him for a while. A story related to that: He was in his wheelchair in preparation for going to the hospital for a procedure, and I was bent down putting his slippers on, and showing a lot of my cleavage (such as  it is). His cancer was advanced month, and his high potassium levels were beginning to cause some delirium and odd thought patterns. As he sat, He looked down my top, as he had always done, but this time said, “I don’t know what it was about breasts–why they were so popular…”. And we shared a laugh. He also said, “Women smell so nice.”

I’ll work, come home at a reasonable time, take it easy. See how things go, behave myself. I do feel the seasons changing, and that things will be getting stormy soon.

 

“There are no words…” is not a comfort to me, if I take it literally.

I’m getting a lot of words drafted, but not ready to post any of it, so just a few: My husband died a month ago. We are processing, as we were when he got his diagnosis seven months ago–yes, it was a gradual thing, though not drawn out. His goodbye week was very precious, his death was peaceful and attended by me and his parents. It happened hours after we had him transported to our hospice house, where I was to stay with him and get some rest while he was attended by skilled workers. He was eating and drinking until the last day, though and enjoying time with his loved ones. He started slipping away while we were in the garden. He had reassurances from me that we all loved him a whole lot and that we all knew he loved us a whole lot, and that he’d given us a tremendous lot. And that we’d be okay, and understood if he had to go soon. We wept, comforted each other, and then bathed him and said farewell to his remains. They are now  only ash minerals, in a heavy box by my bed.

We his family planned the memorial service and spoke about him, prayed, reflected, sang Be Thou My Vision, range a bell three times, projected a slide show. Lots of friends helped, as they had been doing in the previous months. My house is full of flowers and cards, and my freezer is full of food. The sweet peas outside our bedroom window that provided fragrant bouquets all summer are going to seed, producing a thousandfold what I planted.

One of the emails I received back from the death announcement I sent out read, “There are no words.” This struck me as standard polite lies. How the hell would I be able to gone if there really were no words?

But I thank you for your patience while I arrange them carefully.